Health Risks Are Rising in Mountain Areas Flooded by Hurricane Helene and Cut Off From Clean Water, Power and Hospitals

EXPERT: Sarabeth Baxter Lowe
FEATURED IN: The Conversation — Tuesday, October 1, 2024
OVERVIEW: Hurricane Helene’s flooding has subsided, but health risks are growing in hard-hit regions of the North Carolina mountains, where many people lost access to power and clean water. …
 
READ ARTICLE

Planning Now for the Disasters of Tomorrow

EXPERT: Jennifer M Trivedi
FEATURED IN: UDaily — Saturday, August 10, 2024
OVERVIEW: “Disasters know no boundary lines. Floods, earthquakes, wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, drought, conflict — they happen anywhere and everywhere on our planet. It’s why the University of Delaware’s Disaster Research Center (DRC) has a global reach, and it’s why that reach has global impact. You could see both DRC’s reach and impact during a daylong workshop for graduate students, held during its 60th anniversary celebration earlier this year. The study and work those students were doing will help policy makers and leaders around the world prepare for disasters of the future.”…
 
READ ARTICLE

How heat and a hurricane combined for misery in Houston

EXPERT: Jennifer M Trivedi
FEATURED IN: E&E News by Politico — Friday, July 19, 2024
OVERVIEW: “Compound disasters such as hurricanes and heat waves are increasingly testing Texas and other states along the Gulf of Mexico, said Jennifer Trivedi, an expert on disaster vulnerability at the University of Delaware. […]”

“‘There’s a phrase people use: “There’s’ no such thing as a natural disaster,”‘ Trivedi said. ‘Really what we mean by that is there is always some sort of human intervention, human decision-making, human structures that are shaping the systems that really ramp a hazard into a disaster.’ […]”

“At the same time, experts say equitable citywide access to cooling centers and other emergency resources is crucial for protecting vulnerable populations when the lights do go out. And, in the long term, building up climate resilience in socially vulnerable communities is key to better outcomes when disasters strike. ‘It really is an equity question,’ Trivedi said. ‘That’s something that has to be part of these conversations.’ […]”
 
READ ARTICLE

Evacuating is expensive. Recovery is long and hard.

EXPERT: Jennifer Trivedi
FEATURED IN: Perci — Monday, September 18, 2023
OVERVIEW: “Jennifer Trivedi, Assistant Professor of Anthropology is Core Faculty at University of Delaware’s Disaster Research Center. She studies “the people part of disasters. How people make decisions before, during and after a disaster and what influences those decisions – their personal histories and circumstances as well as larger social and cultural contexts they find themselves in.” She spoke with us recently. Here are edited excerpts from our conversation.” …
 
READ ARTICLE

This N.J. town erected barriers to hold back the sea. A public fight erupted.

EXPERT: A.R. Siders
FEATURED IN: Washington Post — Friday, August 18, 2023
OVERVIEW: NORTH WILDWOOD, N.J. — From atop the local lifeguard headquarters, Mayor Patrick Rosenello looks out over the shrinking shoreline of his hometown.

To the north, past the kaleidoscope of umbrellas that dot the beach, he can see the massive bulkheads the city has installed to hold back the encroaching sea — the same ones at the heart of an ongoing fight with the state, which has sued North Wildwood and fined it more than $8.5 million for that and other work it says was unauthorized, misguided and destructive.
 
READ ARTICLE

A history of Hawaii’s sirens and the difference it could have made against Maui fires

EXPERT: Sarah Elizabeth DeYoung
FEATURED IN: National Public Radio (NPR) — Monday, August 14, 2023
OVERVIEW: DRC Core Faculty contributed to this recent article on the key factors that should be considered in warning systems in the context of the #MauiFires
 
READ ARTICLE

Friday Fellow Feature: Tykeara Mims

EXPERT: Sarabeth Lowe
FEATURED IN: The Bill Anderson Fund — Friday, August 4, 2023
OVERVIEW: Our featured fellow for August is TyKeara Mims, a DrPH student studying Epidemiology at Texas A&M University. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from Spelman College and a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree in Community Health Education (epidemiology minor) from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. …
 
READ ARTICLE

A Caribbean island’s quest to become the world’s first climate-resilient nation

EXPERT: Jennifer Trivedi
FEATURED IN: BBC — Wednesday, April 19, 2023
OVERVIEW: … “This element of neighbourly communication is hugely important for early warning systems, says Jennifer Trivedi, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Delaware’s Disaster Research Center. ‘Often, when I ask people in the field where they heard about an incoming hurricane, or changing floodwaters, they talk about hearing it from friends or neighbours,’ she says. ‘Someone knocked on their door. A friend called their house. They heard about it at church. Those networks are essential because people know them, they trust them.’ This intricate communication chain provides important layers to reach people in more ways, she adds, over and above warnings sent to smartphones. ‘We can’t expect that will be the only warning system. Many people around the world don’t have [a smartphone], don’t use all its capabilities, or maybe they’re in an area that doesn’t get a signal as well.'”…

…”For Trivedi, habitability ultimately hinges on cooperation between people on many different levels – from local cultural decision-making to international policy changes. ‘Keeping areas habitable is a decision that has to be made not only in local city halls, but also in spaces like the United Nations.'”…
 
READ ARTICLE

How I Teach – Anthropology

EXPERT: Jennifer Trivedi
FEATURED IN: UDaily — Tuesday, April 11, 2023
OVERVIEW: “How I Teach – Anthropology” featuring Dr. Kedron Thomas and speaking with Dr. Jennifer Trivedi. “An applied anthropologist, Trivedi said she wants her students — regardless of their class year or major — to learn the fundamentals of the discipline and, most importantly, how they can use that knowledge in their daily lives.”
 
READ ARTICLE

What Happened to Us

EXPERT: Valerie Marlowe
FEATURED IN: New York Times Magazine — Wednesday, February 22, 2023
OVERVIEW: Quoted in an article re: Columbia’s COVID-19 Oral History Project
 
READ ARTICLE

Disaster science reaches out

EXPERT:
FEATURED IN: UDaily, University of Delaware — Wednesday, June 10, 2020
OVERVIEW: The Disaster Research Center has added a new public outreach service in which graduates tudents compile high-quality research on a variety of topics and summarize it in ways that are clear and easy to understand.
 
READ ARTICLE

Why tracing coronavirus cases from the Black Lives Matter protests could be nearly impossible

EXPERT: Jennifer Horney
FEATURED IN: Insider.com — Tuesday, June 9, 2020
OVERVIEW: “Potential exposure in a protest setting is a challenge for contract tracing,” Jen Horney, founding director of the University of Delaware’s epidemiology program, told Insider.
 
READ ARTICLE

Maine CDC begin providing almost daily numbers for negative COVID-19 tests

EXPERT: Jennifer Horney
FEATURED IN: Portland Press Herald — Monday, June 8, 2020
OVERVIEW: If the agency succeeds in reporting the information daily, it would provide critical information for Maine on understanding the incidence of the disease among people with and without symptoms, said Dr. Jennifer Horney, founding director of the epidemiology program and core faculty with the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware.
 
READ ARTICLE

Protest Crowds and Coronavirus Risk

EXPERT: Jennifer Horney
FEATURED IN: Everyday Health — Saturday, June 6, 2020
OVERVIEW: In the time of coronavirus, protests may be seen as “seeding events” or “super-spreader” incidents. Jennifer Horney, Disaster Research Center, on steps people can take to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission if attending a protest.
 
READ ARTICLE

Will the protests roiling America fuel new coronavirus outbreaks?

EXPERT: Jennifer Horney
FEATURED IN: Everyday Health — Saturday, June 6, 2020
OVERVIEW: Jennifer Horney, PhD, professor of epidemiology and core faculty with the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware in Newark, says there are many ways people can reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission if attending a protest.
 
READ ARTICLE

Epidemiologists and contact tracers are disease detectives

EXPERT: Jennifer Horney
FEATURED IN: Delaware State News — Tuesday, June 2, 2020
OVERVIEW: This article, written by Dr. Jennifer Horney and Colten Strickland, explains the work done by epidemiologists in a pandemic.
 
READ ARTICLE

Social v. Science: Finding the middle group as pandemic restrictions loosen

EXPERT: Jennifer Horney
FEATURED IN: Delaware State News — Friday, May 29, 2020
OVERVIEW:
 
READ ARTICLE

#54 COVIDCalls 5.28.2020 – Public Health Update + Disaster Research w/ Tricia Wachtendorf

EXPERT: Tricia Wachtendorf
FEATURED IN: Youtube — Thursday, May 28, 2020
OVERVIEW:
 
READ ARTICLE

COVIDCalls: Esther Chernak and Tricia Wachtendorf

EXPERT:
FEATURED IN: Scott Gabriel Knowles-COVID-Calls — Thursday, May 28, 2020
OVERVIEW:
 
READ ARTICLE

What you need to know? Time to jump back in the pool

EXPERT: Jennifer Horney
FEATURED IN: Georgia Public Broadcasting — Tuesday, May 26, 2020
OVERVIEW: Epidemiologist Jennifer Horney of the University of Delaware says the actual water is safe, but she says pool operators should follow CDC guidelines before re-opening.
 
READ ARTICLE